Vaginas invade Michigan

In medicine, it’s generally a good idea to tell things like they are. If a resident asks me what to expect when opening an abscess, I shouldn’t tell him he’ll find chocolate-scented rainbows. If a patient wants to know if they have cancer, I probably shouldn’t say, “Shhh….you mean the “C” word!”

Medicine is serious business, and so is making laws, especially laws written to limit our rights. In Michigan this week, lawmaking took an Orwellian turn as the House discussed what could become the nation’s most restrictive abortion law. Representative Lisa Brown, who just happens to represent me and my family, was denied her right to speak in the House chamber for using the word “vagina”—when discussing a bill about human reproduction. Pardon me for a moment, but this is ten different kinds of fucked up.

“What she said was offensive,” said Rep. Mike Callton, R-Nashville. “It was so offensive, I don’t even want to say it in front of women. I would not say that in mixed company.”

Anyone who says “mixed company” is probably a douchebag. What was Rep. Brown’s offense?

“Finally, Mr. Speaker, I’m flattered that you’re all so interested in my vagina, but ‘no’ means ‘no,'” Brown said Wednesday.

Regulating abortion into oblivion is about regulating vaginas and the people they are attached to. It is about taking half our population and telling them that they have no right to say no, yes, or anything else when it comes to their own bodies. And telling my representative she can’t even use the proper anatomical term while discussing relevant legislation is simply repugnant.

It’s cute how the manly men of Congress get the vapors when someone who actually has one dares to speak the word vagina. Somehow an anatomical term for my own body is supposed to be offensive to me? WTF GOP?! Oh, Rep Callton! After you legislate my vagina, please, please protect me from abusing my own clitoris!